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Lights in the sky

February 22, 2007

By Nick Lomb

Sydney Observatory often receives reports from the public about mysterious and unexplained sightings in the sky. Many of these are fireballs, which are small rocks from space hitting the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed and burning up brightly as they reach the denser parts of the atmosphere about 30 or 40 km above the ground. Others turn out to be aeroplane vapour trails, ‘dump and burn’ manoeuvres by Air Force aircraft, satellites, weather balloons or even exploding rockets or rockets venting fuel.

We invite you to report your observations here at the bottom of this page. Other people may wish to comment on your observations if they have seen the same object or seen something similar at another time.

When leaving your observations please give as much detail as you can including

– Where you were – reports without a location will not be posted
– The time
– The direction you were looking (north, east, south, west or in-between)
– How high up you were looking (horizon is 0° elevation, half way up is 45° and directly overhead is 90°)
– How long you saw the object
– The direction the object was moving
– Whether it was clear or cloudy
– Whether you could see the Moon or Venus or any other astronomical object
– Describe what you saw

We welcome reports from around the world, however we are unable to respond to international reports.

Thank you

4,710 responses to “Lights in the sky”

Gawler/ Edinborough South Australia Wednesday 28th August between 11:30pm & 12pm. Travelling North East in the car Northern Expressway.
Approx 35°. Very bright flash/strobe of light appeared reasonably close larger than a full moon. Light flashed very bright then took off very very fast in a horizontal direction and flashed again. Saw this happen in front of my car next to my car behind my car and then looked like it was 3km behind my car all in less than a minute. Happened so fast but can’t confirm if it just dissapeared as I was driving at the time. It was a reasonably clear night. My brother was also in the car with me & neither of us could explain what it could have been due to the size, proximity and most baffling the high speed and horizontal/zig zag direction

Gawler/ Edinborough South Australia Wednesday 28th August between 11:30pm & 12pm. Travelling North East in the car Northern Expressway.
Approx 35°. Very bright flash/strobe of light appeared reasonably close larger than a full moon. Light flashed very bright then took off very very fast in a horizontal direction and flashed again. Saw this happen in front of my car next to my car behind my car and then looked like it was 3km behind my car all in less than a minute. Happened so fast but can’t confirm if it just dissapeared as I was driving at the time. It was a reasonably clear night. My brother was also in the car with me & neither of us could explain what it could have been due to the size, proximity and most baffling the high speed and horizontal/zig zag direction. Any ideas?